Blues_X:"It's meant to compensate for the federal gas tax that those vehicles do not pay," he said.

So, you think you can collect federal money under a state law?

I'm not sure it works like that.

It's a mistake. Virginia has a 17.5 cent state gas tax. This proposal would get rid of that, impose a $100 fee on hybrid drivers, and also a few other unrelated taxes (sales tax increase, car registration fee).

In principle this has the sliver of a good idea.... gas taxes pay for infrastructure/road maintenance, and hybrid or electric cars use the road as much as other cars. There is no reason they shouldn't pay equally to maintain these roads.

The big problem is getting rid of the gas tax also, which basically means ONLY hybrid drivers will pay extra to maintain the roads, not drivers of normal cars. Which is just stupid. Either impose an equal yearly fee (say, $25) for ALL cars and get rid of gas taxes, or maintain the gas tax and also add a small surcharge to hybrid drivers.

I can't help but think he's singling out hybrids under the impression they're usually driven by liberals, and this is a way to lower taxes on his main supporters while alienating people who won't vote for him anyway. But then again I'm a skeptic like that.

The "gas tax" is really a "road tax" imposed to raise funds to keep our bridges and roads in repair. It is charged on a per gallon basis, so generally speaking, the more a person drives on the roads the more they have to pay. Hybrid owners consume less gas so they pay less in road taxes than their gas consuming counterparts, even when they drive the same or even more.

During the past couple of years the more liberal people on this board have stated they didn't mind paying taxes to keep their bridges and roads in good order. I think most would agree that hybrid owners tend to be liberal.

Now that they are asked to pay taxes to support bridges and roads they are crying foul.

Now, they have decided that taxes are unfair. Instead they want their own version of corporate welfare, where someone else subsidizes them.

The rest of us simply want hybrid owners to pay your fair share!

It's actually possible that hybrid owners might be convinced to pay a fee to make up for lost revenue, but it's idiotic to expect them to do that while at the same time removing the existing gas tax. In this case, hybrid owners aren't being asked to pay their fair share, they're being asked to be the only ones who pay any tax at all. That's a fair share?

Anyway, what this really is is a "fark you, liberals" sop to the governor's base.

The "gas tax" is really a "road tax" imposed to raise funds to keep our bridges and roads in repair. It is charged on a per gallon basis, so generally speaking, the more a person drives on the roads the more they have to pay. Hybrid owners consume less gas so they pay less in road taxes than their gas consuming counterparts, even when they drive the same or even more.

During the past couple of years the more liberal people on this board have stated they didn't mind paying taxes to keep their bridges and roads in good order. I think most would agree that hybrid owners tend to be liberal.

Now that they are asked to pay taxes to support bridges and roads they are crying foul.

Now, they have decided that taxes are unfair. Instead they want their own version of corporate welfare, where someone else subsidizes them.

The rest of us simply want hybrid owners to pay your fair share!

But that is exactly what isn't happening with this. Don't point fingers about people being hypocrites without at least reading the article.

Supes:The big problem is getting rid of the gas tax also, which basically means ONLY hybrid drivers will pay extra to maintain the roads, not drivers of normal cars. Which is just stupid. Either impose an equal yearly fee (say, $25) for ALL cars and get rid of gas taxes, or maintain the gas tax and also add a small surcharge to hybrid drivers.

If the goal is to charge fairly for wear on the roads, the tax should be proportional to the fourth power of weight-per-axle, and directly proportional to the number of axles and the miles driven. No chance of that happening, but at least a tax on gas has the property of being proportional to the amount of driving and in practice charging heavier vehicles more per mile.

I can't help but think he's singling out hybrids under the impression they're usually driven by liberals, and this is a way to lower taxes on his main supporters while alienating people who won't vote for him anyway. But then again I'm a skeptic like that.

Are there even enough hybrids in the state to pay for the roads? If you keep jacking up the hybrid tax to get all of the missing gas tax revenue from fewer and fewer hybrids, soon there will be no hybrids in the state at all.

State and Federal tax dollars collected on the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel are used to build and maintain our transportation infrastructure. (Allegedly, based on the condition of some roads I've had the misfortune to drive on).

Over the next 20-30 years, there will be an ever-increasing number of vehicles that use less and less gas, and more and more energy derived from other sources. Grid-connected smart meters could be configured to detect charging, and add a vehicle surcharge for just that portion of the kilowatts consumed. Of course, if the source is solar and off the grid, well, that's another can of worms.

Ultimately, some sort of Federally-mandated usage sensitive taxing model will have to be developed, and your car will have a GPS-encoded meter in it that phones home to some agency and debits your bank account, just like filling up on a tank of gas does today.

I'm sure there will be all kinds of sinister "THEY GONNA TRACK MAH MOVEMENTS" people coming out of the woodwork over that, but hey, driving is a privilege, not a right. Public roadway use in a registered vehicle implies consent to usage monitoring, etc.

Take a bike, or walk, if you don't want anyone knowing where you are going. And make sure you leave your cellphone behind, too.

Or you know, tax people who can afford it the most. That's much simpler.

Supes:The big problem is getting rid of the gas tax also, which basically means ONLY hybrid drivers will pay extra to maintain the roads, not drivers of normal cars. Which is just stupid. Either impose an equal yearly fee (say, $25) for ALL cars and get rid of gas taxes, or maintain the gas tax and also add a small surcharge to hybrid drivers.

I can't help but think he's singling out hybrids under the impression they're usually driven by liberals, and this is a way to lower taxes on his main supporters while alienating people who won't vote for him anyway. But then again I'm a skeptic like that.

Only good thing I saw on there from a quick scan was that he was for closing the gun show loophole but he still gets an A from the NRA so I can only assume he's doing some other kind of dirty work for them.

A road usage tax is stupid, the heavier a vehicle is the more wear and tear they do to the road thus making SUVs, trucks, semis and other large vehicles the ones to impose the taxes on. Hybrids don't touch 10 ton vehicles by any stretch of the imagination.

No matter what you do, no matter how good your intent, or reasons for doing what you do, the government will ALWAYS find a loophole or make a new law to fark you out of your money. This surprises you how?

State and Federal tax dollars collected on the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel are used to build and maintain our transportation infrastructure. (Allegedly, based on the condition of some roads I've had the misfortune to drive on).

Over the next 20-30 years, there will be an ever-increasing number of vehicles that use less and less gas, and more and more energy derived from other sources. Grid-connected smart meters could be configured to detect charging, and add a vehicle surcharge for just that portion of the kilowatts consumed. Of course, if the source is solar and off the grid, well, that's another can of worms.

Ultimately, some sort of Federally-mandated usage sensitive taxing model will have to be developed, and your car will have a GPS-encoded meter in it that phones home to some agency and debits your bank account, just like filling up on a tank of gas does today.

I'm sure there will be all kinds of sinister "THEY GONNA TRACK MAH MOVEMENTS" people coming out of the woodwork over that, but hey, driving is a privilege, not a right. Public roadway use in a registered vehicle implies consent to usage monitoring, etc.

Take a bike, or walk, if you don't want anyone knowing where you are going. And make sure you leave your cellphone behind, too.

A fee? Oh fine, because that's in no way a tax, right? A fee is just taking a citizen's money and giving it to the government because he bought a particular car, right? Nope, no taxes here, you must be thinking of someone else, Republicans never tax anyone, don't be ridiculous, hey, look at this ultrasound of your bowels, ain't that neat?

SwiftFox:Hey, remember how the federal government killed diesel cars by doing exactly the same thing to them?

That was a planned killing. Diesel cars increase the demand for the supply of diesel, which of course increases price. That means trains, buses, and trucks pay more every time they fuel up. So the city bus service costs more to run. The light rail costs more to run. Food costs more to move via truck (and thus food stamp programs increase in cost to society, etc). It is also why every time a European company does some engineering changes and tries to introduce a diesel to the American market, the regulators find a way kill it.

European countries tolerate the diesel car since they have electric passenger rail, tend to have subways instead of bus systems, and a much smaller trucking industry.

/if you're a diesel car lover it sucks, but it starts making sense on a macro scale

This far into the discussion and no one has suggested the most logical solution?

Put the tax onto commercial vehicles only. After all they are the ones truly profiting from the roads. And the most road damage is done by large commercial trucks/semis. And there's already an infrastructure in place through the dot/weigh stations that could take care of it. Maybe a flat yearly rate for commercial cars as well. Taxing the non commercial citizens didn't make much sense. Pad the cost onto those who are actually making money off the roads.

The issue with taxing hybrids is that on many of them the MSRP price tag is a bitter pill to swallow. In fact the only way to get that pill down is the $7,500 federal tax rebate. When you start eating into that rebate via state fees, you're not helping. Hybrids likely should be taxed at some point to offset the fact they're not paying into the road upkeep fund, however it is premature. Also it is just a band-aid, the real issue is as we make everything more fuel efficient, we'll see more wear and tear put on the road per gallon of gas purchased. The whole model needs to be reworked.

You could of course raise gas taxes, but that isn't the greatest idea. One of the big issues with American society is different social classes live in different areas, since you can drive to the place you work. So you have people driving from low property value areas to high property value areas. If you raise gas taxes you do disproportional harm to landscapers, plumbers, maids, and a lot of other careers that aren't exactly raking in the money.

As a solution for the moment, I've always felt that luxury taxing premium gas was a valid step. I say this as someone who occasionally commutes to work in a CTS-V or Corvette. If I decide to go tool around in that kind of vehicle, tax me for it. All I ask is that 1) At least half of this tax increase goes to funding other transportation measures (high speed rail, commuter rail, better bus systems, etc) and 2) it has a sunset clause in it (with renewal option of course). Let the state pull enough revenue to fix some roads and help a few cities buy hybrid buses.

/we could tax tires I suppose, as they truly measure the wear and tear potential//a tax based on mileage rating of the tire and the weight the tire can handle/of course then manufacturers would lie about the mileage rating to lower taxes

This reminds me of the push to get everyone to spend lots of money to make their homes more energy efficient. Homeowners spend the money, maybe get some kind of tax credit from the feds -- if they qualify for it, and then the utility companies get rate increases to offset the revenue they've "lost" because of the increased efficiency, and the homeowners wind up with utility bills that are the same or higher than they were before.

As for the tax-the-hybrid thing... Did anyone not see this coming? Seriously?

The amount you're subsidizing hybrid cars is absolutely tiny compared of the amount you're subsidizing heavy trucks. Yeah, trucks buy a lot of gas and pay a lot of gas tax, they also do 10 to 100 times as much damage to roadways as cars. You read that right, 10 to 100 times. They don't even begin to make up for that in the gas tax they pay.

Did you know that Virginia (just looked it up) has raised the truck weight limit pretty regularly for the past many decades. More weight = more damage. Heavier trucks pay more? Noooooope.

/Typical conservative. Gets pissed off every time he sees a liberal in their "freeloading hybrid". Doesn't realize the actual problem with his state's road budget is being caused by freeloading private enterprise.

RandomRandom:Supes: It's a mistake. Virginia has a 17.5 cent state gas tax. This proposal would get rid of that, impose a $100 fee on hybrid driver...

So based on a gas price of $3.30 per gallon, there's currently about a 5% gas tax. Seems it's never been indexed for inflation as that would be too sensible.

So this great plan is to get rid of 5% tax on gas entirely and replace it with a 1% sales tax increase on E V E R Y T H I N G else.

Virginia voters are complete suckers if they fall for this. The governor is raising your taxes. He's just doing it in a sneaky way that he hopes the average voter won't realize is a big tax increase.

/And all those out-of-staters just driving through your state? With no gas tax, they'll use your roads for free. Brilliant!

The sales tax increase for infrastructure purposes actually does make a little sense. This helps pay for the VA portion of the DC Metro as well. Plenty of folks in NoVa commute using the Metro every day, but pay very little in taxes to support it. Though granted a tax on the Metro passes would be more targeted and make more sense.

I hope you're just trolling, or point missed completely. In the gas tax as it exists, hybrid owners don't pay their fair share. In the taxes proposed, non-hybrid owners don't pay their fair share. That's why so many people here are proposing a weight/mileage tax, so everyone does pay the right amount.

Moonfisher:Tracking mileage on everyone would be ridiculous, but how about just taxing mileage on hybrid vehicles? Have them get their mileage read every registration and pay a tax per mile that is comparable to what they would have spent on gas tax. That would be fair.

We had a drought years ago in Virginia and the government aggressively enforced water restrictions, then raise water bill rates because they weren't generating enough revenue on the lower volume. Shockingly, the rates did not go down when the drought was over.

The government knows all too well why we hate it. It just does not care.

pciszek:Supes: The big problem is getting rid of the gas tax also, which basically means ONLY hybrid drivers will pay extra to maintain the roads, not drivers of normal cars. Which is just stupid. Either impose an equal yearly fee (say, $25) for ALL cars and get rid of gas taxes, or maintain the gas tax and also add a small surcharge to hybrid drivers.

If the goal is to charge fairly for wear on the roads, the tax should be proportional to the fourth power of weight-per-axle, and directly proportional to the number of axles and the miles driven. No chance of that happening, but at least a tax on gas has the property of being proportional to the amount of driving and in practice charging heavier vehicles more per mile.

I can't help but think he's singling out hybrids under the impression they're usually driven by liberals, and this is a way to lower taxes on his main supporters while alienating people who won't vote for him anyway. But then again I'm a skeptic like that.

Are there even enough hybrids in the state to pay for the roads? If you keep jacking up the hybrid tax to get all of the missing gas tax revenue from fewer and fewer hybrids, soon there will be no hybrids in the state at all.

That's the problem in a nutshell. What we really want is a Road-Wear Tax. What we used to use was a gas tax, since gas consumption was a rough proxy for how much you drove. It's not anymore, so we absolutely need a weight- and mileage-dependent tax for road maintenance. Nothing else really makes sense.

State and Federal tax dollars collected on the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel are used to build and maintain our transportation infrastructure. (Allegedly, based on the condition of some roads I've had the misfortune to drive on).

We could stop subsidizing oil production and apply that money to the transportation infrastructure, for starters.

Non-arterial roads (read: side streets) should be paid for by property taxes against the properties facing on those roads. Even if you don't drive [much], they are essential for goods and services to your home.

For arterial roads and expressways, let a per-mile tax kick in when the roadway is excessively expensive to build or maintain. You could use an all-camera system like London, but that has some privacy implications. Slightly better would be to use an RF transponder in your vehicle in combination with a payment card that is read by sensors as you drive past them. Sell the cards and refills at kiosks [that accept cash] located at gas stations and rest stops. If you don't care about the government knowing who you are, register a CC or some other type of EFT to your transponder card and get billed weekly. If your card is empty, then the system falls back to photo billing.

Such a system would take a lot of pressure off of the gas tax, which might make people care a lot less about hybrids and AFVs.

Supes:Blues_X: "It's meant to compensate for the federal gas tax that those vehicles do not pay," he said.

So, you think you can collect federal money under a state law?

I'm not sure it works like that.

It's a mistake. Virginia has a 17.5 cent state gas tax. This proposal would get rid of that, impose a $100 fee on hybrid drivers, and also a few other unrelated taxes (sales tax increase, car registration fee).

In principle this has the sliver of a good idea.... gas taxes pay for infrastructure/road maintenance, and hybrid or electric cars use the road as much as other cars. There is no reason they shouldn't pay equally to maintain these roads.

The big problem is getting rid of the gas tax also, which basically means ONLY hybrid drivers will pay extra to maintain the roads, not drivers of normal cars. Which is just stupid. Either impose an equal yearly fee (say, $25) for ALL cars and get rid of gas taxes, or maintain the gas tax and also add a small surcharge to hybrid drivers.

I can't help but think he's singling out hybrids under the impression they're usually driven by liberals, and this is a way to lower taxes on his main supporters while alienating people who won't vote for him anyway. But then again I'm a skeptic like that.

In that case, why not a tax based on actual road usage? If you drive more, you pay more.